Now, I know a lot of you out there on the intartubez will go “huh? wha?” at that topic, but I’ll explain in due time.
I come from a nerdy background. Or well, not so nerdy really, but one of my primary interests is technology and computers. Add to this that I’m also very observant and intelligent, and think a lot about the world around me and what could be made to improve it.
Currently Sweden is gearing up towards yet another election. In a few days the keys to the country will be handed over to a new set of con-men and con-women who will steer it in whatever direction they choose. Despite my general malaise regarding politics I’ve been thinking a lot about how politics, democracy and society could be improved.
See, Sweden is rapidly becoming a two-party country with only a few minor outside players. The political parties representing the blue (right) and red (left) sides of the political spectrum in this country has each gelled into somewhat uneasy alliances with each other. All the somewhat blue parties are in one alliance, all the somewhat red (and some green) parties are in another alliance.
I find this somewhat worrisome.
Now, like I said, I’m a somewhat nerdy person and I like computers. I’m also a Linux-user, and as such I’m going to use operating systems as a metaphor for politics.
There is a deep difference in design philosophy between UNIX-like systems (of which Linux is one) and the most common operating system on personal computers today, i.e. Microsofts Windows.
The difference is subtle but interesting. The philosophy in UNIX-type systems is to make small, specialized applications that do one thing and do it very well – and then make these applications very easy to interoperate with other applications. In fact, most “applications” in a UNIX-like environment aren’t applications in the proper sense of the word, but rather they are individual tools in a toolbox. Just like a hammer or a wrench they do one thing, and they are specialized in doing only that thing. The kernel in the operating system provides some common functions, but just like a toolbox it is essentially useless unless there are tools inside it. These tools in turn are designed to interoperate.
This is why the “proper” applications in many UNIX-like systems are more like front-ends to these tools. The provide a nice, neat interface with which you can work and behind the scenes it’s still most of the same common tools that do the actual work, operating and communicating with each other, each tool doing precisely what that tool is designed to do and nothing else. Each tool has been refined and refined for many iterations, and it is a beautifully crafted tool designed to do just one or maybe two things, but to do them very well.
By contrast, the design philosophy in the Windows world is quite the opposite. Most applications are what I call “limousine applications”. They’re big and bloated, they’re unwieldy, and they try to do as many things as possible at the same time. Again, the operating system acts essentially as the toolbox and provides some common services, but again the toolbox without the tools is just a useless box accomplishing nothing.
However, in the Windows toolbox the tools are strange, multi-jawed, multi-gripped, bizarre creations that try to do everything at once and succeding quite miserably at most things. Sure, they get the work done, but they don’t do it very well and they don’t do it very quickly. Usually because the tool is full designed to do 10 or maybe even double that amount of things, and thus it ends up doing each thing quite miserably. The toolmaker is also very selfish, and as such none of the tools in the Windows toolbox has any interoperation. You can choose one tool at a time, and they will not work well with each other.
You get the picture?
Democracy in Sweden (and in most parts of the western world, especially the US of A) is or have already become the political equivalent to the Windows toolbox. You have one, two or in rare cases three parties that all try to do everything required to run a country. Everything from collecting taxes to running hospitals to making sure the roads aren’t deteriorating is supposed to be managed by one or two parties. The parties have grown into gargantuan multiheaded monsters that stumble through politics spreading their efforts so thin that nothing really works. They want to run everything, but because of their organization and size they end up running everything quite badly. Lots of issues fall to the wayside or are forgotten by this lumbering beast.
I think democracy needs to be more UNIX-like. Rather than having one or two huge political parties trying to cover every issue our society involves, we need many small parties, parties that focus on one thing and focus on doing that thing very well – and then communicate and interoperate well with all the other political parties.
